Dean Dad

From Confessions of a Community College Dean, in which a veteran of cultural studies seminars in the 1990’s moves into academic administration and finds himself a married suburban father of two. Foucault, plus lawn care.

A long-suffering correspondent writes: "I'm an IT manager at a community college. [Several] years ago, my college created a CIO (Chief Information Officer) position and united our technology departments under the new CIO. It was a disaster. The CIO was a longtime administrator at the college who, despite being an experienced educational administrator, wasn't able to be an effective CIO (poor communication and project management). The other administrators were unhappy with the performance of IT under the CIO, but they mostly held their tongues until he retired. Once he left, they let their displeasure be known and started clamoring for the technology departments to be split back up so they can have more control."

Congratulations to the long-suffering California public higher education system, which received a stay of execution from the voters. Proposition 30 raises enough revenue to prevent the next round of cuts, and to actually plan something. Even better, the voters sent enough Democrats to the legislature to achieve the supermajority status that California quixotically mandates for any tax increases. (Tax decreases don’t have the same requirement.)

I love this story, and not only because it’s illustrated with a picture of my old dorm. It’s about a minor trend of some residential colleges designating certain dorms as “quiet housing.” The appeal should be obvious to anyone who remembers trying to sleep while someone in the room next door insisted on blasting the English Beat. If memory serves.

I love this story, and not only because it’s illustrated with a picture of my old dorm. It’s about a minor trend of some residential colleges designating certain dorms as “quiet housing.” The appeal should be obvious to anyone who remembers trying to sleep while someone in the room next door insisted on blasting the English Beat. If memory serves.

I had to smile at this piece in Inside Higher Ed. It recommended a more open-minded attitude towards administrative careers as options for academics who had trouble finding the tenure-track position of their dreams.